


I Could Never Live This Life Without You

by Tesseractingrey



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Clexa Week 2021, Established Relationship, F/F, Family Feels, Fluff, excessive use of text messages, reunited, some classic gay pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:42:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29915010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tesseractingrey/pseuds/Tesseractingrey
Summary: Lexa is away on a 3 day business trip.  Clarke handles it with as much grace as she can muster.  Admittedly, that's not much.  There's definitely some day drinking involved, but at least she has her daughter to keep her company.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake & Clarke Griffin, Clarke Griffin & Original Child Character(s), Clarke Griffin/Lexa
Comments: 3
Kudos: 51
Collections: Clexaweek2021





	I Could Never Live This Life Without You

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a little fluffy thing that I wrote in one sitting and I think it's more cute that funny, so not my typical brand, but I suppose I'm trying new things this week.

Tonight, Lexa was going away on her first business trip since they had adopted Xandie, and Clarke was coping by having a pizza night. It’s not that Clarke minded spending time with just her daughter, or that she couldn’t handle the energetic three-year-old. It was just that she was going to be gone for three days, and that was the longest she’d been apart from her wife in months. She’d only left a few hours ago, and Clarke was already devolving into pining like the wife of a World War II soldier. Lexa wasn’t even overseas; she was just meeting a few new clients in Boston. As much as Clarke hated it, she knew it was easier to get high profile clients to hire Lexa as their lawyer when they were taken out to lunch, rather than just given a phone call. And with a preschooler running around now, they could use the extra money.

Now, “pizza nights” in the Griffin household had never been a simple affair, and Clarke wasn’t about to break the tradition with her daughter. She’d taken the day off, so after she picked Zandie up from preschool today, they’d had a healthy lunch to balance out their dinner, and then they’d gone shopping for every frozen pizza product the local Stop and Shop had. Now, they were the proud owners of a box of pizza bagels, a box of pizza pops, a box of hot pockets, a box of pizza poppers, ingredients to make pizzaritos, a box of pizza pockets, a box of pizza rolls, and finally, a regular Domino's pizza. Pizza bagels were Xandie’s favorite, but Clarke’s favorite was pizzaritos, because she loved watching her daughter try to assemble and consume one. Xandie loved trying to help out in the kitchen, and Clarke allowed her to, even though she really only made more work, because she just looked so cute with her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth in concentration, tomato sauce streaked across her forehead. It was, quite frankly, an insane amount of food, but Clarke didn’t plan to cook more than one or two of each. Besides, Clarke was a master of eating her feelings, and she had a lot of those going on right now.

Once she and her daughter had assembled their mountain of pizza products, they settled in on the couch to watch some DVRed episodes of “Paw Patrol.” Two years ago, Clarke had gone out to bars on Friday nights with her friends, drunkenly flirted with her girlfriend, and stumbled home at 2am to collapse into bed together. Now, she was debating with her daughter about the relative merits of Skye and Rocky, and there was nowhere she’d rather be. Clarke thought flying was a pretty useful skill, but Xandie had been a staunch advocate for the power of recycling ever since she’d learned about it in preschool about a month ago. The only thing that could make this night better was — well, she didn’t want to think about that, because she was trying to wait until she put her daughter to bed to start helplessly pining.

By the time Adventure Bay had been saved for the 4th time, it was 6 o’clock, and that meant attempting to bathe Xandie without soaking their entire house. Clarke was already resigned to her fate, since it felt a bit too ambitious to even hope that an inch of the bathroom could stay dry. If it wouldn’t only encourage her daughter to splash even more, Clarke would go to bath time dressed in a bathing suit.

Lexa  
  
**Clarke:** IMG_6728.jpg  
  
**Clarke:** how is our daughter so cute  
  
**Clarke:** today she decided she wanted to have an underwater tea party with her shark  
  
**Clarke:** and yet  
  
**Clarke:** IMG_6729.jpg  
  
**Clarke:** somehow she still got water on the ceiling  
  
**Lexa:** I hope they were drinking decaf tea, at least.  
  
**Lexa:** You’ve got enough work with that ceiling there without having to deal with a caffeinated 3-year-old as well  
  


Once Xandie and Clarke were finally dry and changed into their pajamas, Clarke tucked her into bed, and brought in her computer so they could FaceTime Lexa. The bathroom could air dry for a bit. No matter what Lexa said about damp rooms and mold, it wasn’t going to grow that fast.

“Hey guys!” Clarke couldn’t hold back the smile that was breaking out at the sight of her wife, but also her daughter’s excitement at seeing her mom.

“Hi Mama! You missed ‘Paw Patrol’ tonight! Skye saved Mayor Goodway from falling off the bridge, so Mommy had a good time watching.” She proceeded to recount all the adventures of the pups that she’d seen tonight, until she started yawning. The plan had been for Lexa to read Xandie a bedtime story, but apparently the little girl had decided to tell her own.

After Xandie had safely fallen asleep, Clarke took the computer back to her own room for a bedtime conversation of her own with her wife, of a very different flavor. After all, what was the point of your spouse going away if you didn’t use the opportunity to have some fantastic phone sex?

———

Saturday mornings were definitely more difficult alone. Usually, she got to be awoken by her lovely wife as she got up to go on her morning run, but it was easy to convince her to stay in bed for longer. And on the mornings when she couldn’t, Lexa apologized with waffles and an absurd amount of whipped cream, so that was alright too. This morning, she was woken up by a tangle of brown curls and skinny limbs hurling herself at her sleeping mother. That wasn’t the issue, though. Clarke was more than happy to cuddle with her daughter for a bit, hugging her tightly to try and get Xandie to stop trying to poke her awake. The problem came when she finally opened her eyes to find her phone and stop it from making its annoying buzzing noises. Unfortunately, those buzzing noises turned out to be 6 calls and 23 texts from Lexa who was fully aware that her wife was not a morning person, and was trying to make sure she got up on time. Despite her best efforts though, Clarke had exactly 27 minutes to get herself and her daughter ready.

Lexa  
  
**Lexa:** Clarke?  
  
**Lexa:** Are you awake?  
  
**Lexa:** You’ve got to wake up, babe.  
  
**Lexa:** I know you don’t like mornings, but you know Xandie will be very grouchy if she’s late to swim lessons.  
  
**Lexa:** Clarke, I love you, but you are almost impressively bad at waking up on time.  
  
**Lexa:** Maybe I’ll do a countdown  
  
**Lexa:** All of this buzzing has got to break through your subconscious eventually, right?  
  
**Lexa:** 45 minutes to get ready  
  
**Lexa:** 40 minutes  
  
**Lexa:** 39  
  
**Lexa:** 38  
  
**Lexa:** 37  
  
**Lexa:** 36  
  
**Lexa:** 35  
  
**Lexa:** 34  
  
**Lexa:** 33  
  
**Lexa:** You’re lucky I don’t have a meeting until 9:30 so I can be your alarm clock this morning  
  
**Lexa:** 32  
  
**Lexa:** 31  
  
**Lexa:** 30  
  
**Lexa:** 29  
  
**Lexa:** 28  
  
**Lexa:** 27  
  
**Clarke:** FUCK  
  
**Lexa:** Oh thank god.  
  


———

Clarke collapsed into one of the offered plastic chairs, and finally breathed a sigh of relief. Miraculously, Xandie was seated on the wall with all the other kids, just barely on time for swim lessons. Usually, she and Lexa came to these together, but there were some mornings where Clarke opted to sleep in instead. This morning, she was tasked with being the obnoxious paparazzi mom, taking enough videos that Lexa could feel like she was really there. If she didn’t have breakfast with a potential client, Clarke would be Facetiming her too.

Xandie’s bathroom antics were a product of how much she loved swimming. Her kicking was much more suited to a pool, though, but her practice blowing bubbles had certainly served her well. The teacher had told them that Xandie was one of the only 3-year-olds in this class or any of the others that she taught that put their face in the water, and Clarke and Lexa were very proud of that. They hadn’t done anything in particular to teach her to put her eyes in, though; she’d just always been a fish.

“No braids today, Xandie?” The teacher asked.

“No, that’s my Mama’s job, and she’s on a trip right now.” That was true. Clarke could barely do more than a ponytail to save her life — the pigtails were really pushing it. They’d taken three tries to get even remotely even, and the right one was definitely still higher than the left, but Clarke just accepted defeat.

Lexa  
  
**Clarke:** IMG_6730.mov  
  
**Clarke:** she’s down to a one bubble now!  
  
**Clarke:** IMG_6731.mov  
  
**Clarke:** the teacher said she’s probably ready to move up to stage 4 and start learning proper backstroke and everything  
  
**Clarke:** maybe even halfway through the session!  
  
**Clarke:** IMG_6732.mov  
  
**Clarke:** IMG_6733.mov  
  
**Lexa:** Her pigtails look uneven  
  
**Clarke:** oh fuck off  
  
**Lexa:** I love you too 💗  
  
**Lexa:** And thank you for all the videos; I can’t imagine having to go a week without being able to see Xandie’s “victory jumps”  
  
**Clarke:** IMG_6734.mov  
  
**Clarke:** this week she yelled “xandie is a guarantee!”  
  
**Lexa:** You suggested her catchphrase be “Xandie likes bees.”  
  
**Lexa:** Obviously I had to intervene  
  
**Clarke:** at least she knows what bees are  
  
**Lexa:** I was considering having her say “Xandie hates the bourgeois,” but “guarantee” seemed like a slightly more age appropriate rhyme  
  


———

After swim lessons, Clarke took Xandie to the playground, where they stayed until she was sufficiently tired out. To her continued annoyance, they wouldn’t let Xandie run around on her own yet, since she was only 3, but she didn’t appreciate having to wait for her parents to catch up. She refused to let them catch her at the bottom of the side, so Clarke just hovered anxiously nearby. Luckily, she was okay with being pushed on the swings, because her determined rocking would almost certainly lead to her falling instead of her generating momentum.

Once they got home, they had a lunch of assorted leftover pizza dishes, and then Xandie took a nap for a bit. Unfortunately, despite her best efforts, Clarke hadn’t been able to get her nap to line up with one of Lexa’s breaks between meetings. Since she couldn’t talk to her wife, she decided to turn on some HGTV and bother Bellamy instead.

Bellamy  
  
**Clarke:** hey can i bring xan over tomorrow for a playdate with the girls  
  
**Bellamy:** Sure  
  
**Bellamy:** We just made some decorational improvements to the dollhouse, so that should keep them all busy for a while  
  
**Bellamy:** How are you holding up without Lexa?  
  
**Clarke:** exactly as fucking well as you’d expect blake  
  
**Clarke:** is 1pm too early for a glass of wine if we walk over  
  
**Bellamy:** I’ll have Echo bring out the Pinot Noir  
  


After Xandie woke up from her nap, she was content to do a bit of coloring while Clarke worked on cleaning up the house from last night’s pizza extravaganza and this morning’s panicked motherly tornado. Xandie liked coloring books, but she liked trying to add things onto the pictures and improve them far more than she enjoyed coloring in the offered sections. Clarke knew they weren’t related, but she still liked to say that her daughter had inherited her artistic talent. Perhaps by osmosis.

In terms of looks, Xandie absolutely could’ve been Lexa’s biological daughter, with her curious green eyes and brown hair, and the name sealed the deal. Lexa’s mother had died when she was young, but one of the few things that her father had told her about her mother was that her name was also Alexandria, and it was a tradition from the maternal side of her family tree to pass the name down to their first born girl. When she was older, perhaps Xandie would choose a different part of her name to go by, but for now, she was very committed to the part she’d chosen.

In terms of personality, though, she was far more similar to Clarke, and not just because of her interest in art. She was also a bit of a bastard. Even though she was only 3, Xandie was already mischievous and trying to negotiate her way out of vegetables and into more “Paw Patrol.” She was the kid who distracted others in class, the one who snuck an extra cookie and blinked up at her moms with a look of perfect innocence when asked about it. The hardest part of parenting was disciplining her for when she went a bit far, like when she “accidently” threw peas in Lexa’s face, instead of laughing at the affronted look on her wife’s face like she desperately wanted to. Clarke loved her so much.

Dinner tonight was mac and cheese, homemade so Clarke could absolve herself of guilt from all the pizza, with carrots, because she didn’t want to have The Broccoli Fight again without Lexa for backup. The meal was followed by another two episodes of “Paw Patrol,” and then another FaceTime call with Lexa. Clarke had washed Xandie’s hair in one of the showers in the family locker room after swim lessons, and she decided that was good enough for today. After recounting the pups’ adventures of the night, Lexa read “Dragons Love Tacos,” and then finally, Clarke had her wife all to herself. There was always room to improve with one’s phone sex skills, and Clarke was happy to use this opportunity to work on it.

———

Luckily, on Sunday morning, Clarke was able to sleep in. Xandie was kind enough to wait until 9am before barging in and jumping on her bed and everything. After a breakfast of pancakes with whipped cream smiley faces, which Xandie informed her was far superior to the bowl of raspberries and Cheerios she was forced to eat in the car yesterday, they played a couple rousing games of Candyland, and then it was time to go over to Bellamy and Echo’s. They had biological triplets who had just turned 3-years-old, and Xandie loved going to play with them.

Bellamy and Clarke may or may not have made a bet about which triplet would be the closest to Xandie when she was older. Thalia seemed to have a similar capacity for chaos as Xandie, but Aggie shared her love of swimming, and if they were on swim team together, there was no hope for the other two. Bellamy thought Rosy, with her quiet temperament, would be the perfect balance to Xandie’s endless energy. Echo and Lexa agreed that they were both insane and needed to stop betting on their children. However, when Clarke was right about Aggie, Lexa would change her mind when faced with the spa day Bellamy would be forced to fund for them.

———

An hour later, Clarke was drunk enough to consider sexting Lexa from Bellamy’s bathroom like a teenager, but sober enough to get her daughter home to her afternoon nap safely, of course. Unfortunately, though, Lexa was already on the plane, so she wouldn’t be able to receive any texts, sexy or otherwise. But luckily, that meant Clarke would be able to talk to her wife in person soon. The Uber ride to the airport was making her regret the day drinking, but tipsy ping-pong with her best friend with the sound of their kids playing in the background was worth it.

When Clarke finally saw her wife at the baggage claims, looking exhausted with her small, sleek, black suitcase rolling behind her, she couldn’t help but run over and hug her, like it was the climax to some cheesy rom com. Lexa had been gone for only three days, and here they were, hugging in an airport like it was a damn movie. But Clarke didn’t care, because it felt too good to finally see her wife again.

The idea that any two people in particular fit perfectly together was bullshit, because all humans fit together well. Evolutionarily, they were meant to. Technically, Clarke’s arms could encircle any other human being just as they encircled Lexa, and Lexa’s neck could comfortably fit any other human’s head the way it fit Clarke’s. What mattered was that Lexa chose Clarke, and Clarke chose Lexa. They weren’t made to be together, but they chose to be. When Clarke hugged Lexa, the contact between their bodies felt perfect because she loved her, and she was so happy to see her. Any two bodies can technically fit together perfectly, but choosing to love the other person is what makes the moment _feel_ perfect.

After what was probably several minutes, Clarke finally pulled back enough to actually look at Lexa.

“I missed you,” she said.

“I noticed,” replied Lexa. Half the airport had probably noticed too, but that was okay.

Clarke had splurged on the exorbitant fee for an Uber to and from the airport even though they had a perfectly well-functioning car just so she could make out with her wife in the backseat like a pair of teenagers for the whole drive home. It was _absolutely_ worth it.

———

They made sure to tip the poor driver well when he finally dropped them off in front of their house. Clarke’s mom had come over to watch Xandie while Clarke herself was picking Lexa up from the airport, since the 3-year-old definitely didn’t have the patience necessary for the experience. They must’ve heard the car pull up, because by the time Clarke had grabbed Lexa’s bag out of the trunk, the front door was open, Abby Griffin standing next to it, and Xandie was running towards them.

“Huggies!” Xandie yelled, throwing herself at her moms. Lexa caught her with one arm, and pulled Clarke in with the other. Xandie was a hugger: she would hug every teacher and kid in her school if given the chance, and did hug at least her own teacher and most of her class several times on a daily basis. She said hugs from her moms were her favorites, though. She was balanced on one of Lexa’s sides, her legs bent around her hip, one arm around Clarke and one around Lexa. One of her knees was digging into Clarke’s stomach and her tiny fingers were digging into Clarke’s back in an effort to pull her closer and Clarke couldn’t put her head on Lexa’s shoulder like usual because Xandie was pressing her face into Clarke’s collarbone, but it was perfect. It was a messy jumble of limbs, and maybe humans weren’t meant to fit together like this, but Clarke thought it felt perfect anyways.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Title is from ["Without You" by Parachute](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNy8KkHJGqE) which is a really good song just in general  
> 2\. I know most people headcanon Madi and/or Aden as their kids, but I wanted to write about a younger kid and we only know Madi and Aden at like 8-12ish so even if I named the kid Madi I'd basically be writing an OC, so I figured I'd just go all in there  
> 3\. I don't know why I feel so strongly about Bellamy and Echo having triplets named after The Three Graces (Euphrosyne, Aglaea and Thalia) but they're going to show up in my Day 7 fic too  
> 4\. The majority of the things Xandie does are things that I've seen actual preschoolers do, because accuracy is very important in fanfiction  
> 5\. The "one bubble" refers to the floaties used to teach kids to swim sometimes — they start with [3](https://www.amazon.com/Water-Gear-Float-4-Color-Split/dp/B0002HRAZ4/ref=pd_sbs_1?pd_rd_w=nwv5W&pf_rd_p=527ea27c-adf6-4b67-9c5f-265eb29e0622&pf_rd_r=GGR7P3R713JRSQFNWWVY&pd_rd_r=6b588e58-00a1-4040-a8dd-8fe964897cbb&pd_rd_wg=KxzJe&pd_rd_i=B0002HRAZ4&psc=1) pieces of foam (I know that one has 4 but that's too much floatation for most kids and I couldn't find a better photo), then go to a 2, then a 1, and then none


End file.
